It is still summer, the days are hot, and the grasses and leaves crisp and turn brown under the burning sun. But… there is a slight chill on top of the heat like a breeze off the ocean or the cool metal of a scythe curving around the back of your neck. The nights are cold. The grim reaper of autumn will come soon for the leaves and insects and animals… but for now it was only time for the demise of the blackberries at the hands of two witches armed with garden shears.
The ripening of blackberries signals the coming of autumn here. Nothing screams “Harvest Home” more than blackberry jam, pie, syrup, or putting them in salads and other deserts… but that’s not what the my friend the Gypsy-Witch and I had in mind when we went berry picking on the mountain yesterday. We picked by a path and everyone who walked by grinned when they saw us and many asked if we were making jam or pie. “Nope, booze!” was the Gypsy-Witch’s reply –much to everyone’s surprised delight. Her and I think of mead first when we see wild berries in the woods and fruit stands at the farmer’s markets.
We picked about 4 gallons of ripe blackberries. Himalayan blackberry is invasive here and it’s everywhere. We ruthlessly cut back its vines with our shears to get to the hidden wealth underneath, snipping off the bunches of berries to more easily pick them and drop them into our buckets. She told me it’s what they do in the Czech Republic where she’s from and I told her it’s what the Native women here used to do – especially with salal berries and others that grow in bunches. It makes the berry picking go so much faster as well –just to sit there lazily in the grass and pick berries from the bunches and drop them in the bucket while chatting about magic, plants, wildcrafting, brewing, cooking, and our friends.
We threw the now berry-less stems back into the woods where they came from. It’s practical and it’s also a remnant of animism; to leave what you do not take of a plant where you harvested it so it can rot and feed on itself again. The forest is a living organism that feeds on its dead, fueled by its ancestors in the form of dead plant matter turned into rich humus.
We returned covered in angry red scratches and hands red with the blood of our foe. Blackberries have a dark side; they scratch and bite and the many-thorned tips grab you by the hair trying to ensnare you. They tempt you like a siren to go further and deeper into the brambles for the biggest juiciest berries you can imagine… but don’t listen! It’s a trick. They want you to go in so far you get trapped in the thorns and vines and can’t get out so you lie there bleeding while the vines eat you. It is no joke my friends –blackberries are as dark-hearted as any poison! Of course, it only makes me love them more. I will devote another post entirely to blackberry recipes and crafts for those who love them too.
I didn’t take any of the berries home with me and the Gypsy-Witch, feeling bad for taking them all for her mead, pilfered her beautiful forest-guarded garden and harvested carrots, beets, onions, potatoes and tomatoes for me to take home. After our wild and garden harvests, we took a well deserved rest and ate Chinese food while watching a zombie movie. It was a perfect day. Tonight we meet again with her hubby Jarnsmior, the Poisoner, the Thelemite, and their various children to feast at the Night Market full of wonderous delights.
